


I Wish I Could Show You

by zjofierose



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Hurt Spock, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Mind Meld, Vulcan Mind Melds, offscreen slavery and abuse of secondary characters, sex trafficking of secondary characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 21:34:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9347267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zjofierose/pseuds/zjofierose
Summary: "I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being." - HafezIn a post-Vulcan galaxy, Vulcans themselves are becoming a prized commodity. When a smuggling ring is discovered, the Enterprise must go to the aid of the victims, as Spock is one of the few remaining Vulcans who can help. But who will help Spock?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lousy_science](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lousy_science/gifts).



> This is a fill for a prompt from FOREVER ago (like, seriously, at least 5 years ago) by the lovely @lousy_science!! I have FINALLY finished writing it, bb (hides face), I hope you like it!
> 
> Prompt was as follows: "This is actually quite an angsty one, it's a h/c, possibly firsttime, idea - a bunch of Vulcan children/telepathic children have been rescued from Bad Dudes but are in shock; the Enterprise is on the planet but Kirk has little power as some other branch of Fleet/govt has taken over the operation, Spock is consumed with working with the kids through mind-melds in trying to heal their trauma, and it's draining him - Kirk is stuck struggling with having no agency, and watching his First being worn down and exhausted. COMFORT HAPPENS etc."
> 
> All violence/sexual abuse/etc is off-screen, and is only mentioned in passing. If you have any questions about the content, or think I should warn for something more specifically, let me know!
> 
> Many thanks to the long-suffering @the_deep_magic who gave it a good once-over to make sure it was postable. <3

Jim’s stomach rolls as Pike tells him the details, and he can tell by the look on the admiral’s face that Pike would like to personally snap the necks of all involved. The man’s hands are clenching and releasing on top of the desk, and Jim’s fingers ache in sympathy. He wouldn’t mind snapping a few necks himself, based on what he’s heard. Bashing heads would do, too, he’s not picky.

He watches the rhythmic patterns of space ships coming and going outside the window as Pike finishes talking and gives a final nod, sliding a PADD across the table with the coordinates and the top secret briefing details. This mission is to be kept silent, and the Enterprise’s presence will not be officially registered at the site. They’re already logged as going on another exploratory jaunt, a quick one this time, expected return of three months time. They’re officially scheduled to be testing the endurance of the ship at prolonged high warp speeds, an easy cruise in between long-term missions. He’s sure everyone below the highest levels will assume them to be stopping by the occasional recreation planet, and that’s fine. They’ll be able to pick up convincing tans where they’re actually headed.

They’re shaped up and shipped out in a matter of hours; it hadn’t been long until their previously planned next launch anyway, and this is urgent. Scotty’s still tightening a few bolts, Jim knows, but he’s been promised that it’s nothing that will keep them from getting to Caval III as fast as the ship can go.

It’s still going to take three days.

\--

He manages to wait till after dinner to tell Spock. He knows he can only put it off so long, even if he still can’t process the thought of having to say these words to Spock’s face. But he really can’t just _not_ tell his second in command why they’re being sent as fast as possible into deep space at the drop of a hat. Spock’s already suspicious enough from the fact that Kirk didn’t tell him immediately, but he’s let it go so far, raising an eyebrow but not saying a word. Jim appreciates it, he really does, but he also knows that if he lets this go any longer, Spock will ask him directly in front of the bridge crew, and he’s not interested in having to extemporaneously prevaricate.

The chime at his door sounds right on time, and he presses the button to open the entry, straightening his shirt as Spock walks in to stand at impeccable attention before his desk. Jim sits up straight and locks eyes with his first officer. Spock’s expression is guarded as always, but this time it’s masking a faint dread that Jim hasn’t seen in awhile.

“Have a seat, Spock.” He keeps his tone neutral.

Spock sits as instructed, his gaze steady, questioning. “Am I correct in my assumption that this in regard to our current urgent mission?”

Jim stops himself from messing with his unrolling shirt hem, placing his hands on the desk in front of him and forcing himself to find and hold Spock’s even stare. He’s not sure when he looked away.

“Yes, Spock, you are correct.” He pauses, and wants to bite his lip as a flash of concern makes its subtle way across Spock’s features.

Professional, he is a _professional_. So is Spock. They can handle this.

“Spock, we are, as you know, heading for Caval III at maximum warp.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Your presence is deemed necessary there.”

“ _My_ presence, Captain?” Spock can never be described as “nervous”, but this is the closest Jim’s seen him. On a human, his expression would look sour, but they’ve worked in each other’s pockets for long enough that Jim knows this particular face masks a deep concern and apprehension. Jim wants to slump, but forces himself to remain upright, his face composed. Whatever their budding relationship is to become, he owes it to Spock to be honest and forthcoming with this, no matter how much he wants to turn away.

“Yes, Spock. There’s been a bust, a trafficking ring broken up.” He can see Spock’s eyebrow rising, so he lets the words roll around in his mouth before he drops them onto the desk between them. “Trafficking, Spock. For all the usual things; sex, slaves, money. The vast majority of the victims are children.”

Spock’s face goes a little pinched at that, but he’s still not making the connection.

“…and?”

“Vulcan children, Spock. They were trafficking _Vulcan_ children.”

He holds his breath as he watches Spock absorb the notion. His facial tells are infinitesimal, but it’s been months, _months_ of chess and sparring and movies and teasing Uhura and working on engines and running from Klingons, and Jim knows Spock’s face more than well enough to see and hurt for them all.

After a moment Spock uncurls his fingers from the edge of his PADD, and nods in acceptance.

“Why us? I am not a trained mind adept.”

“No. But you’re the closest Vulcan, and we’re the fastest ship. Pike said…” he falters, collects his wits, “Pike said that every Vulcan is taught the same basic mental skills, and that you will be able to aid the children in beginning to stabilize themselves until the time when Vulcan healers can arrive.” He pushes the horrible image of a tiny, vulnerable Spock out of his mind. “We are commanded to assist in information gathering from the few adult victims, and to begin plans for an outpost on Caval III designed to discourage slavers from using that particular route to run their ships. You are under orders to begin the process of organizing and treating the children, recruiting assistance as you see fit.”

Jim rubs a finger between his eyebrows. He feels hollowed out at the thought of it; danger, he can handle. Brutish aliens, sure, fine. Even run-of-the-mill slavers, he hates them, but he can deal with them in some sort of rational corner of his brain. But child traffickers? He wants to hurt them in exceptionally thorough and systematic ways.

Spock’s voice interrupts his thoughts, flinty and cold. “Captain. I will retire now. I must meditate on this.”

“Sure, Spock.” Jim waves a hand. “We’ll be arriving in two and a half days. And Spock?” He looks up and sees his friend’s familiar face utterly blank, wiped absolutely clean of any emotion. He shivers. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

“Yes, Captain.”

\--

Their arrival on Caval III is nearly anticlimactic; there is a welcoming party of discreet Federation personnel who whisk Spock aside almost immediately while the rest of them are subjected to a day-long quarantine before Uhura is also spirited away to put her language skills to good use. It seems that, while the slavers were specializing in exotic and difficult to acquire stock, they were not averse to trading just about anyone they could coerce, borrow, or steal, and there is a larger population here than the Federation scouts had first realized. This means that the whole planet is loosely littered with small encampments of slaves in various states of health, fear, and distress, awaiting transfer to a buyer, and _something’s_ got to be done.

The Federation troops have apprehended the traders, but there is a power vacuum and terrible need, so Jim throws himself and his crew into it full force. Every crew member pulls 16 hour shifts dispensing food, clothing, and tents. Bones takes one look at the situation, swears inventively, and proceeds to recruit every single person on the ship with even a hint of empathy, sympathy, or therapeutic skills. He gives them a crash course in how to provide basic mental health services before assigning them medical tricorders and an assortment of hyposprays and sending them out to the camps to systematically process the victims.

Jim works for thirty six hours straight before collapsing into his bunk and sleeping for the entirety of the next shift, dreaming in haunted snippets of malnourished children and branded adults. He gets up and does it again, repeating the cycle until Bones catches on midway through Jim’s fourth thirty-six hour shift and tranqs him _a propos_ of nothing, deputizing Cupcake to drag him to his quarters and let him sleep it off.

Jim is heart-breakingly proud of his crew. They work miracles in the first two weeks, vaccinating thousands, reuniting families, contacting planets of origin. It’s grim work, and not easy- for every recently captured victim who gets a tearful reunion with a loved one, there’s a dead-eyed veteran who’s been sold so many times they can’t remember where they were actually from. Then there are those born into slavery, who have no family, no home, no community other than that which is quickly being disbanded around them; some of these rebel during the third week, retreating into the planet’s caves and demanding to be allowed to form and maintain their own society and remain on Caval III. It’s a request Starfleet Command acquiesces to with an ease that seems to surprise the rebel leaders, so used to fighting for any scrap given to them. By the beginning of the fourth week, the Enterprise is working with the leaders to identify the best spot to build a permanent settlement, and has begun drafting plans for a small city.

Jim doesn’t see Spock for twenty four days.

\--

He’d received the weekly check-ins from the Federation assistant assigned to Spock, but it’s not the same. He hasn’t seen him, hasn’t spoken to him, and in spite of Bones’ recommendation that Spock be left alone to _“process the goddamned trauma, Jim”_ , he’s snuck in to Spock’s quarters because he just can’t do this anymore.

He had thought that Spock would be meditating.

He is not.

It takes a minute, but Jim finally makes out his shape. He’s seated on the bed, or, well, he looks like he _was_ at one point seated on the bed. Now he’s slumped over on his side, poured into a heap Jim didn’t know Spock’s spine could relax enough to make, and Jim can feel his heart splinter into sharp-edged pieces at the sight of him so utterly defeated.

“Please…”

Spock’s voice is steady, but it’s empty in a way that hurts, and Jim steps forward anyway, his bare feet noiseless on the thin Starfleet issue carpet.

“Jim… _don’t_ …”

Jim pauses. It’s always so hard with Spock- he wants to respect Spock’s boundaries, he really does, and when Spock says _no_ with a particular look in his eye, Jim stops. But every so often, Spock just isn’t able to sort out what exactly it is that he needs, and those are the times when, if Jim pushes just a little bit more, Spock turns to him instead of to discipline, and lets himself _feel_ in the ways he so rarely allows.

“Spock, I’m just going to come sit with you.” He’s raised his hands in a gesture of pacification without realizing it, palms out as he steps forward. “I won’t touch you. I won’t even talk.”

This thing between them, it’s still so new. He doesn’t know what it is, not really. He just knows that when Spock looks at him just so, and that when those fingers press their touch to his skin, that when they’ve moved past words in any language into sounds in every language, he is… _more_ . He’s more ecstatic, more terrified, more content, more desperate, more _complete_ than he is alone.

He settles himself onto the floor, resting his back against the bed near the legs of the Spock-lump. He can’t bring himself to look at his friend’s face.

“And if in a little while…” he can barely stand the thought, but he forces it out, “…if what you need is for me to leave, Spock, I will.”

\--

The creak of the bed wakes him from where he has tipped over to lean against the nightstand. He straightens, disoriented, and cracks his neck. There’s a square of light in front of him- their shared bathroom. He must have woken up when Spock got up to go use the head. It’s got to be late by now, or early, depending on how you want to look at it. He’s somewhat surprised that Spock didn’t wake him and send him back to his own quarters.

Water runs briefly, and Jim staggers to his feet, pins and needles shooting up his legs as blood flows back into his extremities. The noise stops, and a silhouette appears in the door, long and lean and bowed down with fatigue. Jim hurts just looking at him.

“Spock?”

The shadow reaches an arm to palm the light plate and the room is plunged into utter darkness. He can hear the steps as Spock crosses the room, but Spock must’ve reinforced the light shielding of his quarters, because all Jim can see at the moment are the bursts of colored light his eyes are creating in the absence of actual cortical stimulation.

“The oldest one is named T’Mari. She is thirteen years of age.”

Jim can feel the shift in the bed  against the backs of his legs as Spock settles. Judging from the motions, Spock is cross-legged and facing him. He would very much like to reach out and see, reassure one or both of them with a hand on a knee or an arm, but he knows better than to interrupt. Spock will let him know what is needed, and clearly right now his role is to listen.

“I will not trouble you with the details. You are old enough and experienced enough to imagine exactly what several adult Orion males can do to a young girl of any species.”

Jim’s gut clenches, and he turns his face away. The gesture is as instinctive as it is meaningless, here in the warmly oppressive dark. His fists clench uselessly against his thighs.

“They did not want to damage her overtly- after all, she did not yet have a buyer. But that still leaves a substantial area of available abuses, and they were creative, Jim, exceptionally creative.”

The last time Jim has heard Spock speak with this particular devastating calm was immediately after the loss of Vulcan, and he wants to throw up at the way “exceptionally creative” sounds like “member of an endangered species.”

He doesn’t.

“When I first saw them, they were sitting as a group in the corner of the room. The littlest ones were clinging together, but none of the others could stand to touch each other, let alone anyone else. But T’Mari… she is very brave, Jim. She stood between them and myself, and held out her hand. She knew she was the most damaged, but she also knew that she was the example, and that if they were ever to receive the help they so desperately need, that she would have to lead the way.

“May the gods help me, I did not want to.” Spock pauses, his voice steady, but distant. “I did not want to help. It is not what I am trained for. I have no aptitude for it. Everything about her told me not to reach out- the panic in her eyes, the fear in her muscles, the twitch of her mouth, all of it told me not to dare expose myself to her.” He pauses again, and Jim takes a deep breath in. He hadn’t realized he was holding his breath.

“But Jim…” Spock’s voice is small, exhausted, and Jim sits on his hands so that he doesn’t reach out and grab Spock, dragging him down and never letting go. “Jim, she is a child. I could not refuse her.” He lets loose a shuddering sigh. “I couldn’t refuse any of them. How could I? I had _no choice._ ”

He gives in and reaches blindly, his fingers slow in the dark so Spock can feel their approach and avoid it. They land on Spock’s calf, closer to Jim than he had expected, and are immediately gripped in a bone-crushing grasp that makes Jim grit his teeth in surprise and discomfort.

“Spock…” He doesn’t want to know, but he needs to. The question has to be asked. “What did you do?”

The grip on his hand tightens until he can feel his knucklebones sliding and lets a gasp slip past his lips, earning a modicum of relaxation from the fingers squeezing his.

“I calmed them. I stabilized their minds, helped them set up blocks that will wall the trauma off from their daily thoughts.” Spock thinks for a moment, then continues. “It was all I knew to do. It is inelegant, at best, and I can only hope that the healers will be able to undo any inadvertent damage I have caused. It seemed the best possible solution for the moment. But...” Spock’s voice breaks, and Jim scoots closer, his other hand reaching out and landing on Spock’s forearm. “Jim… in order to stabilize them… in order to block off the hateful, hurtful memories… in order to do that, I had to see each and every one of them. Jim… I had to see… to _feel_ each and every one of them.”

Jim swallows hard. Spock’s voice is empty and cold, devoid of every tone and shaking. His hands are cold on Jim’s fingers, pressing mindlessly into his flesh.

“Jim… I am entirely undone. I cannot center myself. I cannot calm myself down. My Vulcan self is at a loss and helpless, and I am left with the pain and fear and anger that my Human self is so incapable of handling. Jim…” Spock’s voice catches and trembles. “I am lost in fear and disgust. I can barely bring myself to touch you now.” Spock’s fingers clutch at Jim’s skin, his sleeve.

“Spock,” he breathes, “what do you need? Tell me.”

“I need you. I need you to center me, to bring me back to myself.”

Jim frowns. “What…,” he starts, but Spock keeps going, the words pouring out of him in a flood.

“Jim, I need you to help me remember that touch is good, that not every hand is raised to strike, to harm, to shatter. That not every finger is made for destruction, that not every emotion is rife with hate and fear. I need you to do this for me, please, to bring me back, to save me from this miasma of evil that has caught me in its filthy trap. Jim…” He brings his forehead to press against Jim’s, warm and solid and so familiar. “Jim… I need _you…_ ”

“Spock…” Somehow Jim’s hand has found its way to Spock’s face, mapping the edges of his jaw to angle upward into the thick strands of his hair. “Spock… are you sure that’s wise? I mean… you have functionally experienced a vast range of traumatic events in under a month.” He takes a breath, willing himself to be rational in the face of the desire to crush Spock to him. “It seems like _more_ space would be better than less; do you think adding another mind to yours is really going to erase that pain, those memories?”

“No. I do not.” Spock pauses, lacing his fingers with Jim’s. “But it will help.” He pulls their linked hands into his lap and presses his nose against Jim’s face. “Burn the feelings of hate and fear and disgust from my skin. Touch me, and remind me that I am my own person. Put your hands on me, and show me that I choose to give and take pleasure, not pain.” His voice is torn, pleading, and there’s no way in any hell that Jim could ever refuse him, not this, not ever this.

“Okay,” he says, and “hush, I’m here. Spock, I’m right here.” He gets his hands on Spock’s feet, his mind racing, full of protocols for shock, techniques for self-soothing, quadratic equations and ships’ manifolds and that one piano piece he had to learn when he was six, and then he exhales and puts his thumbs on the pulse points points inside of Spock’s ankles, pressing inward as he empties his mind, focusing only on the correct amount of pressure to apply where tendon meets bone.

He imagines light, lets his mind fill with it as he takes Spock’s left foot in his hands and pushes into the arch. He can hear Spock’s sharp intake of breath as the muscles release, but he focuses instead on the sensation of warmth, of acceptance, pushing away the thoughts that race and pull at his consciousness, moving his hands up and down the ridges of Spock’s ankle bones, sliding up under the edge of his loose pants.

“What do you want, Spock?” he asks, his voice rough with the emotion he’s trying so hard to suppress. “What do you need?”

Spock’s body shudders beneath him, his hands clutching at Jim’s sleeves. “Skin contact,” he grits out, and Jim nods. Spock seems unable to focus on anything long enough to be helpful, so Jim hauls him upright and efficiently strips them out of their clothes. Like a drill, he thinks to himself, like decontam procedures. Just because he’s ridiculously, stupidly, _helplessly_ in love with Spock, that doesn’t mean he can’t be… well, professional is maybe the wrong word for this situation, but it doesn’t mean he can’t be efficient and effective. When they’re finally both nude, he bears Spock down onto the bed, pressing him flat on his stomach and stretching out on top of him, arms on arms, legs on legs, his belly to the curve of Spock’s spine. He’d worry about smothering him if he didn’t know how much stronger Spock is than he, if he couldn’t feel the slow rasp of Spock’s breath raising and lowering the ribcage beneath his own.

“Jim…” Spock manages, sounding strangled, and Jim runs his hands up and down Spock’s forearms, weaving his fingers into Spock’s own, and concentrating again on the feeling of being suffused with light. He imagines a tiny sun being born, a radiant glowing orb of gas and energy right at his solar plexus, and pictures it growing larger, its heat and light radiating out through his limbs, from his chest into Spock’s back. He wills it into Spock, sees it chasing down all the flecks of pain, of filth, of anger and fear and desperation that have stuck to Spock’s being, focuses on the feeling of this light outshining everything until the space behind his eyes is white and burning.

He’s so intent on his imagery that he nearly misses the movements of Spock’s body beneath him, the way that Spock’s hands are clutching at his own. They’ve been intimate before, but this is different, this is personal and fragile in ways it hasn’t been in their previous encounters, and he has to know, has to make sure he understood correctly.

“Spock, are you sure you want…”

He doesn’t get a chance to finish his sentence before Spock’s presence presses into his mind, energy sparking between their fingers as Spock releases his remaining controls on his telepathy.

 _Yes, Jim, please. I need your touch, your breath_.

“Alright,” he says, “alright,” and sets his mouth to the back of Spock’s neck and bites down, not fighting the sudden surge of lust that runs through him at the taste of Spock’s skin. He drags his hands up Spock’s forearms, relishing the shudder of Spock’s body beneath him, and rolls them both onto their sides, wrapping Spock’s body in his own. He hooks his thigh up over and around Spock’s hip, pressing himself like a second skin to Spock’s over-warm muscles, wrapping their legs together as he gets an arm under Spock’s neck and hauls his chest back against Jim’s own, pinning his arms in place. His upper arm free, he strokes every inch of Spock’s body that he can reach, long, firm pulls meant to calm and reassure. Spock is shuddering in his arms, and Jim can feel the feedback loop of his own worry spiking into Spock’s already overwhelming anxiety, so his forces his mind back away from his concern and into the deep and abiding love he holds for the man in his arms.

He thinks back, skipping past their first meeting, past the loss of Vulcan, past Nero, to the first time they’d played chess. Spock had come to his apartment in San Francisco not a week after they returned, had brought a bottle of Saurian brandy and some Vulcan concoction, and had stalked in through the front door, past Jim’s startled face, then plunked himself down at Jim’s chess set, waiting pointedly until Jim seated himself and took the first move. They’d played intently, drinking themselves first into hilarity, and then into free relaxation. Jim lets his lust roll through him at the memory of Spock’s dark eyes on his, the gentle green tinge to his cheeks as the night grew warm and he unbuttoned his collar.

He presses his mouth to the back of Spock’s shoulder, absorbed in the faint metallic taste of Spock’s skin, letting his mind wander over the way Spock’s long, delicate fingers had caressed the figures as he contemplated his moves. He twines his free hand with Spock’s, rubbing gently against the pads of his fingers, the knuckles of his hands. He can feel Spock watching through their link, can feel the thread of arousal coming from his side of the meld as he thinks of how Spock had collapsed on his couch, limbs strewn wide with abandon. It had taken all of his self-control not to throw himself at his first officer then and there, but instead he’d draped a blanket over the long form, pausing to memorize the curve of his cheek, the wing of his eyebrow, and slipped quietly off to his bedroom to take himself in hand, coming embarrassingly fast to the thought of Spock’s dark eyes and full mouth.

The Spock with him here and now chuckles softly, still shivering but also beginning to move restlessly against Jim’s arm and leg.

“Hadn’t told you that one, huh?” Jim says sheepishly, releasing Spock’s fingers to sweep up into his hair. “God, I wanted you so bad.” He pulls Spock’s head back, relishing the bitten-back moan that comes as Spock’s throat is bared to the room, and leans up to trace the curve of a pointed ear with his tongue. “I’d’ve done anything, Spock, I mean _anything_ , to have you take me then and there.”

“You should have said so.” Spock mumbles, and then jolts as Jim bites gently at the very point. “I would have acquiesced.”

“I did eventually,” Jim says, running his hand down Spock’s long torso, tracing the lean lines of his abdomen down to his hips. Spock arches his back, but Jim can still feel that the whirl of emotions within him is tinged with grim sickness and sticky misery, so he pulls up the image of their first time together to the front of his mind.

“ _Eventually_ ,” Spock says, in what would be teasing if he didn’t still sound choked, and Jim chuckles deep in his chest.

“Jim…” Spock says, his voice hushed and nearly reverent, and twists like an eel in Jim’s grasp, flipping himself over so they’re suddenly chest to chest, face to face. “Remember for me,” he whispers, and settles his fingers over the meld points, sparking the familiar sensation of being pulled under in a galaxy-strength rip tide.

“August,” Jim gets out as he slides into the meld, “so fucking hot.” His eyes close involuntarily, and he’s there, suddenly back on the farm, sweating like a pig into his white t-shirt, the thick air barely moving as he stood in the door of the barn.

“ _You were avoiding me_ ,” Spock thinks/says, a faint undercurrent of humor threading its way into Jim’s mind to mingle with the scent of dust and hay and heat.

“I couldn’t stand it,” he confesses, hauling Spock against him entirely, letting his muscles relax against the dense, warm, body plastered to his front. He remembers it, running into Spock at every turn in San Francisco; every Starfleet function, every headquarters hallway. He pushes away the frustration he’d felt in favor of the gratitude he feels now, the consciousness of Spock here, with him. “You were _everywhere_ , and I couldn’t have you. I had to get away.”

“You always have me.” Spock’s voice is nearly inaudible, broken, and the _if you want me_ is unspoken, but Jim chases the sharp thread of insecurity that winds between them with a sudden righteous anger, that his Spock should _ever_ think himself less than perfect, less than loved. His hands and mind caress, reassure.

“I didn’t know,” he says, “I didn’t know. And then you came to me, walking out over the fields, and I felt like…”

“...like there was no escape,” Spock pulls out, shades of his own sense of inevitability at the sight of his captain bleeding through, and Jim presses their mouths together, his heart bursting.

“Like there was no escape, and I was grateful. I was _relieved_. Two days without you was the hardest thing I’d done, and even if all I could do was orbit you at a distance, I needed you with me.”

He sees himself suddenly in Spock’s mind’s eye, covered in dirt and sweat, his t-shirt sticking to his trim frame, his eyes desperate, face twisted in surprise. He watches himself fall to his knees, arms stretched out in supplication, and laughs at the image.

“ _Can’t believe you still took me after that display,_ ” he thinks wryly, his mouth too busy with the taste of Spock’s tongue, _“isn’t that pretty much the antithesis of everything a Vulcan wants?_ ”

“ _No,_ ” Spock replies, his emotions rolling through the meld, deeper and more powerful than Jim’s ever felt before, and he knows suddenly that Spock’s been holding back, that what’s between them is deeper than he’d dared to hope. “ _No, Vulcans value honesty above all things besides logic; you could not have had a more honest response to my appearance, and I knew then my… feelings… for you were returned._ ”

Jim falls into the images, adding his own memories of Spock’s arms coming around him, the first touch of their lips. It’s a maelstrom of perspective, a contradictory whirl of omnipresent sensation made of shared memory and shared reality. He gives himself over to the feelings, the sensations, clinging to the body and mind of his partner, his friend, pouring out every feeling of love, of joy, of gratitude he has, exploding outward his dreams and hopes of an endless future, a thousand different pathways explored together, taken together, bound up in one simple feeling unleashed a thousandfold.

He comes back to himself breathing hard, a shuddering Spock in his arms, clutching on to him hard enough that Jim knows he’ll feel it for days, but he can’t begin to think of why he wouldn’t want it exactly this way. He settles Spock against him more closely, shoves his face into the shock of thick, dark hair in front of his face and breathes deep.

Spock stirs softly, the edges of the meld still open between them. Jim ventures a careful touch to Spock’s mind, and finds it calm, tinged with sadness, but steady. He retreats quietly into his own skull, stroking the side of Spock’s face with his fingers.

“Jim,” Spock murmurs, and touches two fingers to Jim’s own, “thank you.”

Jim strokes Spock’s fingers with his own, and closes his eyes.

\--

Spock is meditating when Jim enters the room, the curl of incense before his still form releasing some of the tension that still lives in Jim’s throat. He exhales deeply, stepping forward and toeing off his shoes, the door swishing shut behind him as he walks over and settles himself behind Spock, sliding his outstretched legs under Spock’s folded knees, wrapping his arms around Spock’s waist, and letting his face press into Spock’s back.

It’s several minutes before Spock surfaces, and Jim lets himself drift, releasing the stress and bustle of the day into the quiet, warm, dimness of their shared quarters. It’s his own form of meditation, he supposes, and he rests content, drifting in and out of a doze as Spock finally shifts minutely under him, pushing back to consciousness.

A long-fingered hand settles on his own, and Spock’s voice rumbles out into the quiet of the room.

“The Ambassador says that I have made progress in reintegrating and controlling my emotions over the last six months,” Spock says, his fingers rubbing gently at Jim’s own. “He believes that I am now ready for deployment again.

Jim rubs his face against Spock’s back, not sure whom the gesture is designed to soothe.

“I’m glad to hear it,” he says finally, steering his thoughts away from Caval III. He’s seen the latest reports; the fledgling society is struggling along as best it can with help and protection from the Federation. The reunions and reunifications continue, albeit less and less frequent as the number of slaves with anything to return to decreases. The Vulcan children have all been returned to their parents or adopted into Vulcan households, including T’Mari herself, who has become the Ambassador’s silent shadow. It’s a good outcome, all things considered, and he will never regret it, but the toll it took on Spock…

“Hush, _ashayam_ ,” Spock says, and stands, turning to offer his hands to help Jim up. “What we did was right; it is illogical to feel sadness over a good action.”

Jim takes the offered grip, and lets himself be pulled onto his feet.

“Illogical,” he says, smiling at Spock, and kisses him.

 


End file.
